key: cord-0756207-fpjpm195
authors: Britton, Edward; Richardson, Paul; Mian, Ibrahim; Conley, Thomas; Byrne, David; Boyd, Holly; Doherty, Connor; Gupta, Sandipika; Butt, Sundas; Subramanian, Sreedhar
title: Letter: Covid‐19—re‐initiating clinical services for chronic gastrointestinal diseases. How and when?
date: 2020-09-20
journal: Aliment Pharmacol Ther
DOI: 10.1111/apt.16061
sha: 55ea1957ee149b3b118d77c00c6f6c81c9226959
doc_id: 756207
cord_uid: fpjpm195

LINKED CONTENT This article is linked to Al‐Ani et al and Prentice et al papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.15779 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16065

We read with interest the review by Al-Ani regarding the prevention and management of Covid-19 in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. 1 Despite the rapid and widespread adoption of virtual consultations, patient acceptance of such strategies is poorly understood. We conducted a survey among IBD and liver disease patients taking immunomodulatory drugs to evaluate effectiveness and adherence to social distancing and shielding advice and to assess patient preferences for out-patient follow-up in the context of a pandemic.

We surveyed 195 patients with high risk chronic gastroenterological conditions (Table 1) . Both adherence and effectiveness were high: 89% adhered to guidelines, and prevalence of Covid-19 symptoms was low. Only 9% of patients reported symptoms that they felt were consistent with Covid-19 and only 1.1% tested positive (self-reported). While shielding and social distancing were effective for high risk patients, there is now a need for patients to re-engage with clinical services and resume chronic disease management.

Patients were keen to engage with novel methods of follow-up, with 85% wishing to have a virtual consultation when possible and 91% willing to attend for blood tests or scans and to weigh themselves in advance of an appointment (Table 1) 

Review article: prevention, diagnosis and management of COVID-19 in the IBD patient

British Society of Gastroenterology guidance for management of inflammatory bowel disease during the COVID-19 pandemic

Patients' overall satisfaction rated on a Likert scale of 0-10 for different models of out-patient clinic follow-up. Results were categorised as 0-3 = dissatisfied, 4-7 = neutral and 7-10 = satisfied.TA B L E 1 Characteristics of included subjects and preferences for modality of out-patient follow-up